Serial Ata and Raid

[Eagle5469]

currently I am using parallel cables for my harddrives....after reading around today I found out that both my motherboard and harddrive support serial ATA

Can I use serial ATA capabilities without using RAID?



Would there be an increase in performance of using SERIAL ATA without raid compared to Parallel ATA?

Thank you for your help


Nate

 

[CRXican]

what's with all the noob first posts today?

You can use an SATA drive without running RAID. RAID comes into play when you use one or more SATA hard drives. Chances are you won't notice much of a difference between IDE and SATA

 

[So]

I don't think there are any drives that support both Serial and Parallel ATA. Correct me if I'm wrong. There will be no significant difference between two drives that are identical except for their interface.

 

[Zelmo3]

@ CRXican: I think the appropriate response to Eagle's first post is supposed to start with "Welcome to the forums!" The question is legitimate, and with all the talk of SATA RAID it's hard for someone just starting on this technology to know whether they're inseparable.

@ Eagle5469: SATA can be used without RAID. SATA controllers usually have RAID capability and use their own BIOS to enable the SATA channel either with or without RAID, so it may at first look like you have to set up the drives to use it but you have the option of just enabling the SATA and not defining a RAID array.
As for performance, there won't be a difference between PATA and SATA on a single drive.